


Father of Dragons

by PurpleMoon3



Series: dresden_kink fills [8]
Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: 3rd to 1st person POV swap, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Daddy!Dresden, Gen, Kink Meme, mini-fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:03:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9373463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: Snip in which Harry raises baby dragons.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fill to [this](http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/3344.html?thread=3855888#cmt3855888) prompt: Harry ends up with one or more dragon eggs (whatever magical rules you want to work with here, it's fine by me). Then, by the usual process, he ends up with one or more baby dragons. And they love their daddy!

It was hard being a single father with triplets. He hadn't even gotten to do the fun part -unless it had been a _really, really_ fun part and he didn't even remember it- which usually leads to the formation of ankle biters. Mouse seemed to be taking things in stride, herding the little monsters whilst Mister observed from the top of a bookshelf and teaching them that furniture was not to be chewed on. The only good thing about the situation, Harry mused, was that no one he knew had ever read Anne McCaffery's _Pern_ novels.  
  
Though if Thomas called him _Khaleesi_ one more time he'd _dracarys_ his Incubus ass brother or no.  
  
"Puff! Stop chewing on Smaug's face or so help me-!" Harry shouted as he stepped out of his mysteriously warm shower - or not so mysterious, as Elliot had built herself a nest under the water heater- and brandished his blasting rod at the gray scaled dragonet. Puff immediately released his brother and let out a shrill whistling like noise, batting his eyes innocently in a _who, me?_ like way.  
  
Smaug padded over and shouldered Harry's shins. Dripping, Harry lifted his youngest and cradled him to his chest. The red dragon's snout attempted to bury itself in his hair. He patted Smaug's stubby wings comfortingly.  
  
Harry used his pointer and middle fingers to gesture to his eyes, and then at Puff. "I'm watching you."  
  
Elliot came waddling out of the water closet. She chirped something that sounded suspiciously like "Mama!"  
  
The white scaled dragon then dropped a rat the size of a small terrier at his feet as Mister looked on like a proud papa.  
  
Next time, Harry promised himself he was not going to take any cases that involved stolen Fabergé eggs.


	2. MLD: Fatherhood is Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unexpected continuation is unexpected. Inspired by the prompt: [Any, Any, Screw puppies or kitties I want a baby dragon!](https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/887514.html?thread=106610138#t106610138).

I knew as I walked through Executive Priority that I did not look like a picture of wizardly power and prowess. My hair was a mess that only the most generous could call bedhead, shadows hung under my eyes like weights, and I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten something that didn't come in shiny pre-packaging. I didn't want to be at the health spa. I wanted to be home, where I matched the décor, and where I could curl up in bed with the rest of my family.  
  
Unfortunately, I owed Marcone a favor and he had gotten it into his head that he wanted to know what had caused nearly forty city blocks to loose power for about an hour last night and I happened to know that it had been me. Well, me and the damn pack of fulgervores that some little idiot with too much free time and not nearly enough parental supervision had summoned.  
  
Who sells second hand grimoires, anyway? Who _buys_ them?! Dumbasses, that's who.  
  
In sum; I'd had a long night, there was a puppy sized weight burning a hole in my pocket, and Marcone's smug scumminess was the cherry on the shit Tuesday.  
  
"Harry," Marcone looked up in feigned concern as I entered his office behind my escorts. Who were probably actual escorts. The girls' teeth were like too perfect pearls as they smiled and bounced away, task complete. "You really should take advantage of the amenities provided by your membership. I daresay the sauna alone-"  
  
"Up yours, _John_ ." I didn't mean to growl the last, it just sort of came out, and it wasn't lost on me how the only ones still in the room were Marcone, his red haired attack dog, and Swordsinger Barbie. "Like I told you on the _phone_ , it was nothing. I _handled_ it. Case closed."  
  
Marcone leaned back in his chair with a demeanor so slick it didn't even squeak. He folded his hands together over his chest, fist cupped in a palm, and stared at me for a moment as if expecting more of a rant. He didn't get one. I just wanted to get gone. "While I generally believe in autonomy-" I scowled at the man's choice of words. "-and to each their own bailiwick, _your_ business crossed over into mine last night. It resulted in some, shall we say, rather abrupt business negotiations."  
  
"My heart bleeds."  
  
"It isn't unreasonable to request-"  
  
Marcone's voice was cut off by the high pitched warble of a dragonet in distress. I hissed out a rather ludicrous expletive and reached into my duster pocket with my gloved hand. Puff's long, serpentine neck twisted around my hand leaving a trail of snot nearly as gray as the dragon himself. I cradled him to my chest like a baby as he whined. The talking had probably woken him up.

He didn't look as pathetic as he had earlier in the week, but I wasn't a dragon and I wasn't prepared to risk leaving him alone with two other siblings who's natural instincts upon smelling weakness were to go for the throat. **** ~~~~

"It's okay, buddy. I'm right here." I cooed and groped around my other pocket for the small baby bottle full of castor oil and almond milk.

"That's a _dragon_ ." The comment was spoken so softly and gentle that it not only pulled my attention from trying to get Puff to take the nipple but that of Marcone and Hendricks, too. Gard was leaning forward, just slightly, and the expression on her face wasn't something that should have ever been there. Instinctually, I clutched Puff a little closer and slid a foot back. "Where did you get it? How did you manage to _hatch_ it?"

"I thought this meeting was about last night's fulgervores." I dropped the words with as much irritation as I could muster, and like _magic_ Gard rocked back on her feet with pink tinted cheeks.  
  
"Apologies, Mr. Marcone." She muttered, and Marcone nodded. He looked back to me and _damn_ if my distraction from the scaly infant in my arms didn't mean he was getting exactly what he wanted. Fuck. Him.  
  
"If you would, Mr. Dresden?"  
  
Just my luck what every little Valkyrie wanted growing up was a _dragon_ . Were ponies not good enough or something? I ignored the chair and dropped my ass to the floor. Puff curled up in the space of my legs and suckled at the bottle, occasionally blowing bits of steaming congestion into the carpet.  
  
...maybe I would take Marcone up on the sauna, would serve the bastard right if Puff got dragon mucus all over it.  
  
"Right, so apparently you can buy literally anything on e-bay, including..."


	3. "Family" Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [the prompt: Any, Any, catching fireflies at dusk in the summer.](https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/911656.html?thread=107573032#t107573032)
> 
> I say inspired by because once I got to writing it took a left turn into cracky mafia territory. Also, credit to Red vs. Blue and Aristocats. Artistic license taken with Chicago Locations. I just wanted to write something light and fun after the depressing that was my last fic.

Edwin “Normal” Montoya was on a milk run. His travel plans didn't actually take him near a grocery, and as he stepped out of the little off-chain quick stop wedged between a hair salon and a butcher's it wasn't a bottle of 2% he carried in the brown paper bag but the results of a rather different patronage. He walked a ways down the road to where he'd parked his car and popped the trunk with his key fob. Edwin, or Eddy as he preferred, tossed the brown bag onto the pile of its fellows waiting inside the knife-proof, bulletproof, and most importantly fireproof lockbox that had been installed in the back of his Riviera. It was a little more paranoia than Eddy thought necessary, but if the Big Boss wanted to pay for the changes Eddy wasn't a fish big enough to make waves.

No, Eddy thought with a contented smile as he pulled he trunk shut and took a half-empty cigarette pack from his jacket pocket, tonight really was a milk run. He hadn't even had to threaten to break anything when picking up the Outfit's cut from his usual rounds. Eddy tapped the case against his wrist until one white wrapped stick stood above the others and plucked it with aplomb. He slipped the cigarette between his chapped lips and climbed into the driver's seat, pulling the door shut with the clatter of real American steel. He started the car and took a second trigger the built in lighter before smoothly merging with the evening traffic.

All he had left to do was to check on a tip about some ne'er do well loitering in Douglas Park after hours; dismiss, dissuade, or dispatch as the situation demanded.

* * *

Harry “The Mad” Dresden was humming as his hands beat out a soft rhythm on the steering wheel. Behind him, clinging to the back of what remained of the driver's seat by crook and claw, Elliot warbled in a game attempt at keeping time with the human. She was, by far, the most well behaved of his three 'fur' babies. It had been argued by persons who didn't know any better that Harry was actually well above the allowed pet limit in his lease, but the wizard was firmly in the belief that Mouse was more of a speech impaired roommate than a dog and Mister was, well, a _cat._

So far as the little folk were concerned it was the Dread Beast's apartment. Harry just paid the bills and filled the bowls.

The traffic light turned green and Harry stopped beating out _Radar Love_ in exchange for whispering the words and continuing to the park. His babies had been getting bigger, getting _big_ , and he suspected Mister had been supplementing their diet with fresh kills. To what end, Harry couldn't say, but there was probably an alley cat gang war involved somewhere down the line. The dragonets were starting to grow larger than the disguised mountain lion, after all. However, with the increase in size came an increase in energy and a need for space to burn off all that energy. 

Both Elliot and Puff were experimenting with flight and had knocked over multiple piles of knick-knacks, an entire bookshelf, as well as countless cups and stacks of coke cans, as they tried and failed to navigate the cramped quarters of Harry's basement apartment. He had never been more grateful for the multitude of miss-matched carpets and rugs layering his stone floor than when Smaug, feeling outpaced by the loops and circles of his siblings, flapped his stubby wings and crashed skull first into Elvis' well padded face. 

It was obvious to Harry that Smaug wasn't built like his brother and sister. For all that he was a dragon, seven limbs in all counting tail, the wings appeared largely vestigial. Harry didn't think that was a defect, though. Smaug's scales were a deep red, with little flecks of black at the edges, and he ran far hotter than his siblings. When he was upset his throat glowed, as if hot ball of magma was caught in it. Lately, when his babies bickered among themselves Harry had been seeing sparks from places other than the mouth. Sure, all three could exhale the most adorable licks of flame when he tried to get them to light candles, but Smaug was the only one that Harry suspected could use his own claws as a substitute for flint and steel.

They needed space to experiment: for Smaug to practice his own kind of flight that wouldn't result in a re-enactment of 1871, and for Elliot and Puff to fine tune their own flame. 50/50 odds for annihilating a candle instead of lighting it didn't spell well for his apartment.

Harry turned into the sort drive that led to the Douglas Park's parking lot, and glanced up into his rear view mirror. Mouse was laid out in the backseat, ears giving the occasional twitch, while Puff used his furry butt as a step stool to press his face against the tinted window. Smaug himself was chewing happily on an old paperback that had been beyond salvaging. Grinning to himself, Harry's eyes flicked back to the road and was surprised to see a 1970's Buick Riviera sitting pretty in the otherwise deserted parking lot. It would have been the sort of car to trigger jealously issues if it wasn't for eye-searingly ugly green it was painted. 

“Not like we can throw stones, huh?” Harry questioned his non-human audience as he put the misleadingly named Blue Beetle into park a few spaces from the other relic. For a moment Harry considered turning around and going home. They had arrived late enough to could hear the buzz of waking street lamps mingle amongst cicadas, and technically after hours, precisely to avoid any other park patrons. Elliot climbed around the chairs and settled herself in his lap, nudging at the door handle with her nose and blinking big blue eyes at him. “Okay, okay. I got the cooler. Mouse, can you carry the skewers?”

* * *

 

Aside from the general respectability of the neighborhood, Douglas Park wasn't that bad of a spot if you were dealer who thought he was cleverer than he was. The mini-golf was a nice distraction while waiting for contacts or clients, and the grounds were expansive enough and grown enough in places to offer plenty of bolt holes from passing authoritative eyes. Eddy had even taken his girl for a late night picnic by the poolside a few times to many happy returns. Unfortunately for the business competition that wasn't nearly as clever as he thought he was, the Boss had a vested interested in keeping Chicago's parks wholesome and free from any less-than-legal business ventures. 

That policy had gone up a notch ever since the Lunar Murders, though Eddy wasn't privy to the specifics, only that some jogger and a few vagrants that had been taking advantage of the Outfit's more family friendly tenants ended their lives as a chunky message that the Boss' _specialist_ had returned, with interest. By now even the competition knew better than to try to use any of Chicago's parks as a foothold. They were watched too well and threats upon their grounds were dealt with quickly and painfully. But not on the grassy knolls themselves. 

Which was why Eddy enjoyed a lovely lungful of carcinogens as he slipped through a break in the shrubbery that had been worn in by countless exploring children and sexually exploring teenagers over the years. Good times. Eddy exhaled a stream of smoke and rubbed his cigarette out on a tree as he turned around and started the trek back to his car. His gun was an apparently unneeded but reassuring weight beneath his armpit, and chalked the call to one of many paranoid residents that didn't understand a park was _public_ and such everyone, no matter how bad their fashion choice or circumstance, was allowed to pass through it.

Even, Eddy's normally zen thoughts derailed in gibbering terror as his feet continued to follow the footpath around a hill on autopilot, _specialists_. 

Only the barest strip of sunlight still painted the sky in the far distance as a strip of pink lipstick kissing the earth goodnight. The leaves of trees were muted shadows rather than lush green, with individual bushes blurring into solid walls in the distance, and marching across the green was a figure that could easily have been mistaken for someone too stupid to live. It was _summer._ He was in a _leather coat._ In a _park._ At _night._

And carrying a boxy shape under one arm, that could have held _anything_.

Eddy threw himself into a roll, passing behind a park bench and jerkily taking his hand off of his holstered weapon before habit could get him killed. After an accident a few years ago where some _dumbass_ nearly shot their own guy and caused trouble between the Boss and his _specialist_ word had come down from above that everyone needed to know The Wizard on sight. Of course, most guys in the outfit couldn't keep a straight face while calling someone a wizard, which in hindsight was an excellent cover. And inside joke. 

Madame Bianca's mysteriously burns down and collapses in a sinkhole? A wizard did it.

All your classic rock albums turned into Best of Queen overnight? A wizard did it.

An army of naked sparkling Barbie's flew off with the leftover tortellini? That one might have been on Beto sampling the product again.

But a frozen butterball falls from the sky and wrecks a douchebag's day? A wizard, clearly, did it.

It was better for everyone's maintained dignity to refer to Harry “the Specialist” Dresden, Marcone's best kept not a secret, as such. It was better for everyone's maintained health to avoid the _specialist_ unless explicitly told otherwise by the Boss. Eddy stifled a delayed cough with his fist and stuck to the growing shadows, crouched low. While the coat, in the twilight, could have been mistaken for any number of long dusters the man's height and most importantly the dog could not be. 

Three other figures where scampering after the two behemoths, tiny in comparison, and Eddy almost missed them but for the reflective white coat that shimmered like a heat haze on one as it darted ahead to a corpse of trees and the teasing light of bug butts.

Eddy stared as wings unfurled.

Eddy slowly reached for his cellphone, all the while Jacob's pug-nosed face snarked loudly enough to block out rational thought: “ _Pics or it didn't happen!_ ”

* * *

 

Elliot “Ness” Dresden was a girl of sophisticated tastes, she thought. Her ears perked up and swiveled to keep track of mother as he hammered metal rods into the ground. Her brothers, short sighted idiots that they were, were too busy wrestling with themselves (and Uncle Mouse, who became a casualty of stupidity as flailing limbs and flopping wings rolled over his paws) to pay attention to the much worthier prey. Crystalline blue eyes narrowed as Elliot crouched and tried to focus like mother said. She fed her hunger to the spark inside, and fanned it with her love, which was she supposed another type of hunger. Curiosity. 

Thirst.

She wrapped desire around her like a blanket and shivered as the world vanished; or she vanished from the world. Everything was muted tones of gray, not unlike Puff's hide, with traceries of color in the shapes of living things. The magic lights danced, still, mesmerizing, and her stomach yawned. 

Elliot snapped back into reality as her jaws closed around the minuscule flying thing; not a creeping insect like those the royal guard rightfully defended food stores against or the many legged hairy abominations that thought they were safe in the shadows and damp, but something _small_ and _magic_ and _glowing_. And maybe stupid, like her brothers. The others didn't even flee when she rippled into reality right beside them! They only drifting higher as the yellow lights flashed on and off, mocking her efforts.

Elliot swallowed the creature and lurched, claws digging into the rough bark of the trees as she followed the magical miscreants that dared to challenge her supremacy! She nursed her grudge against them and spat her rage, the plume of flame crisping several leaves yet somehow missing her target as it surfed ahead of the suddenly heated air. 

“Elliot!” Mother called in a tone that he usually reserved for Puff, the attention whore. “What are you doing?!”

* * *

**Welcome to MafiaBanter Online Chat**

 

Normal: I'm telling you. If they aren't dragons they are mutant catsquirrels. He doesn't bred them, does he?

Made-of-Win: Dunno, maybe? My Nona has bridge a few nights a month with his neighbor. They hear some weird things sometimes.

Normal: What about the surveillance team? I think Ricky was on it last time? He see anything?

Baby's Got Back: Haha. You know the rules. What happens on Wizard Watch stays on Wizard Watch. And no, Boss scaled back surveillance since he finally got his damn door fixed. Sorta. My cousin Vinnie could do a better job than that.

Made-of-Win: Your cousin couldn't do a ten dollar whore on half-price roofie night. Tell him he still owes me a new blender.

Normal: Do I want to know?

**Guard-Against-The-Night has entered the chat.**

Guard-Against-The-Night: As Mr. Colombo pointed out this entire conversation is forbidden, however; I am willing to forgive the infraction for pictures of the dragon.

Normal: I dont have a camera that works at night please dont kill me.

Guard-Against-The-Night: Understood. Miss Esposito? I understand you still have the equipment used while you were assigned to Senator Durbin?

Made-of-Win: Yes Ma'am!

**FullNelson has entered the chat.**

Guard-Against-The-Night: Please rendezvous with Mr. Montoya at the Park. If Mr. Dresden spots the two of you cover story is a couple on a late night walk in the park. It probably won't work, but Mr. Dresden won't care over much if the dog isn't upset. You will not upset the dog.

FullNelson: @Guard-Against-The-Night. Boss wants to talk. Now. Also you should be using the screennames for a MULTITUDE of reasons.

**FullNelson has left the chat.**

Normal: Which mutant did you want the pictures of?

Guard-Against-The-Night: There is more than one?

**Guard-Against-The-Night has left the chat.**

Baby's Got Back: Welp. Thems your marching orders. You guys mind if me and 'Bras Not Bullets' join you? She's a Pern fan and we'll bring Chinese.

Normal: Well, I suppose if the specialist sicks his bioweapons on us we'll all die together.

**Normal has left the chat.**

Made-of-Win: How did he know we were talking about the Specialist?

Mac&TireIrons: The Boss See's All. The Boss Knows All.

99Lives: He isn't a god.

Baby's Got Back: Yet.

 

* * *

 

Smaug “The Terrible (at Everything)” Dresden glared at the grate mother had balanced over several metal sticks he'd pounded into the earth. On top of the grate sat several chicken breasts dripping marinade onto a pile of damp sand and rocks that smelled of day old fish. The smell wasn't a bad smell, as things went, and in fact excited Smaug's saliva glands just a bit more than the cold chicken going to waste. 

“Come on.” Mother cajoled, and while his face wasn't a dragon face that Smaug could read his fire was. Smaug didn't know why Mother didn't just cook the bird breast for them. Mother scooted over, dragging his butt along the grass rather than stand, and sat beside him. A large calloused hand came down between the red dragon's shoulder blade's and scratched. Smaug melted. “You gotta at least try. These are a bit more robust than candles and marshmallows. If you can just figure out how to pace yourself... come on Smaug. Please? For me?”

Smaug sighed and climbed into his mother's lap. He pressed his spine against mother's cotton-y disguise and tilted his head back, bumping draconic brow into human sternum. The chicken dripped, uncooked and inedible.

Mother sighed. “You're a lot like me, you know? All that power and no control. It can be scary, yeah. Here, let me... try... something...” Mother took Smaug's scaly, clawed hand in his fleshy one and squeezed, eyes closed. That sat like that, nice and warm, confused little warbles coming from the other two as they tried and failed to cook their Marshmallows under Uncle Mouse's supervision. The grass by the pond was littered with sweet smelling charcoal. Mother raised an the arm not connected to the hand holding Smaug's, and a pinpoint of light blossomed. 

Smaug's amber eyes widened as the magic of it tickled his nose, and the heat of it soothed his scales. “There we go. Can you feel it? It's not... not pushing the heat. You aren't casting but... cradling it. Carefully. Very, very carefully. _Smaug._ ”

His Name, Mother had said his Name. Given by Mother. To him. To _Smaug_.

Smaug opened up and turned to the tiny sun that even now was causing sweat to break out on Mother's face. The little dragon tasted the air and thought about all the lessons that only made a lick of sense to the young creature. Smaug stared at the burning ball of light until it winked out with Mother's shudder, and then he held that memory of warmth on his scales and gathered up all his frustration. Elliot, thinking she was so special because she could go invisible and slip up behind them, only her scent giving her away. Puff, thinking he was better just because his wings were more developed and his scales matched the fur. 

Stupid Puff. Puff of hot air, more like.

Smaug held that thought and cracked his jaw, blowing a conflagration of negative thoughts at what should have been food. 

“Shit! Scale it back a bit, honey, I can scrape off the burned bit but only if it is a bit that was burned.”

The dragon complied, thinking hard, willing the fire to thin like butter across hot toast instead of puncture like a hot knife did the latter. Smaug hiccupped, ash and smoke blasting out his nostrils. Mother didn't laugh. Mother smiled.

“Good, great! Now see how long you can keep it up.”

Mother smiled, and reached into the plastic chest or the plastic bowl of marinade, to apply another coat to the seared meats. Smaug rolled out of his lap and waddled closer to the grate, now faintly steaming, and waited for his Mother to clear the area of cooking zone before taking another deep breath and rearing back on his hind legs exhaled a gentle, steady flame.

 _I can do this._ Smaug thought, pushing away the wind in the trees and the sqwaks of his siblings and the lapping of water in the pond. His mother was watching, and he _would_ do this. 

(Harry smiled and bit down on his lower lip, blinking back tears, as the flame lit air blurred into a mirage of intangible wings rolling off of his boy's stubs.  The smallest dragonet began to drift upward.)

* * *

 

“What are they doing?” Eddy asked from the cover of his shrubbery, trying to hide the glow of his smartphone from the specialist's eerily perceptible dog. There was a twig poking his ass and the bugs attracted to the screen were biting his hands, but as long as he didn't get turned into the next practice dummy for the baby pyromaniacs he didn't care. This, he lamented, is what he got for thinking tonight would be easy.

“What?” Marrissa “the Dame” Esposito whispered as she twisted away from the camera, her face washed out and pale in the night. Or maybe it was low blood pressure from shock. Still, she was a trooper, snapping pictures with the night vision feature and mechanically jotting down notes.

“I said,” Eddy continued while trying to remember if she'd ever been assigned to tail the specialist. “What are they doing now?”

Marissa blinked, and her dark eyes narrowed. Eddy recognized the look and gulped, failing to escape her rearing leg as his backward movement was halted by a tree trunk and the heel of her pumps jammed into his shin. 

“Fuh-!” Eddy yelled into his own bitten hand, glaring through tear filled eyes as his leg throbbed. “What was that for?!” 

“God. Damn. I am getting so sick of answering that question!”

“You have the fucking camera, I can't see shit. Don't bitch at me because if you poke the bear and it comes running I don't gotta be faster than the bear, I just gotta be faster than you.”

“Your chivalry knows no bounds.”

“Fuck that, you ain't no woman and you know it.”

Marissa rolled her eyes and turned back to the camera on its squat tripod. She expanded the telescopic attachment and twisted a few knobs, pressed some buttons, and snapped another picture. She looked over her shoulder at him. “Dresden is laughing at the white one, now. Ohmygod. That's so adorable. And terrifying. Terrifyingly adorable?”

“What is?” Alfred “Alley” Colombo asked in what should have been a whisper but most definitely wasn't. The man was on all fours, creeping along the same worn animal path into the hollow formed out of the clustered bushes as his girlfriend inched along behind him in four inch heels and a dress that barely met the decency standard for club wear. Unlike everyone else, however, Molly “the Malls” Christianson carried a plastic bag of food in one hand and a spray bottle of insect repellent in the other.

“Well, the white dragon-” Marissa tried to explain but was interrupted by Eddy's grumble of “Mutant!” at the same time Molly let out a nasal squeal of “Fire lizard!”

“The blue eyed white _dragon_ has been trying to eat lightning bugs all night, and it apparently succeeded, because now her tummy is periodically lighting up like the damn things are still alive in there.” Marissa peered through the camera again. “And she's freaking out about it. Yeah. That is hilarious. The gray one is treating her stomach like a cat with a laser pointer.”

“Ooh. Al. I want one. You think he'll sell me one?”

“Sweetie, if you had dragons would you sell them?”

“Mmm. Point.”

Eddy glanced down as his phone vibrated and for a moment the tan he had cultivated through many an afternoon disappeared as his heart jumped. 

**The Gentleman has entered the chat.**

The Gentleman: @Normal Report to my office 0600 tomorrow.

**The Gentleman has left the chat.**

* * *

Puff “the Magic Dragon” Dresden sighed contentedly as he wallowed in the melted remains of the ice that had transported their dinner. Smaug had finally managed to not be a total failure, and his own contribution to the evening had been to butter Mother up with lots of rubs and purrs and big-big eyes just like Father taught him. As a result, Mother ended up cooking the deceptively delicate fluffy treats for them. 

Really, he was a weapon of mass destruction. Not a microwave. It wasn't his fault he kept setting the whole sugary thing on fire and when they attempted to blow the marshmallows out like Mother said... well. It was hard to switch from 'flame on' to 'flame off'. And Elliot may think she's so damn smart, but her brilliant idea to dunk the flaming marshmallows in water had only ruined the things even more than burning them up had.

“Yo.” Uncle Mouse's nudged the lid off the ice chest and he reached in with his head, grasping the dragonet by the stiff, curling spines at the base of his neck and lifting. “We're home. Time for bed.”

“I don't wanna.”

“I don't wanna smell your farts for the next two days but we don't all get what we want.”

Puff huffed and waved goodbye to the tiny, personal sized bank of fog behind in the cooler. He watched as Mother yawned and dumped the water out in the gutter. Puff tried to fight it, but felt his own jaw unhinge with a yawn before snapping back in place. He smacked his jowls and gracefully admitted defeat. 

Mouse dropped him, and Puff landed on all fours beside his siblings. They all clambered down the stairs into the cave of soft things they called home. Some hind brain instinct insisted that it wasn't right- that the cave was supposed to be dark, and cold, and hard, and full of sharp edges and hard lessons but...

Puff didn't think that sounded very enjoyable. 

He liked his soft cave better. 

Mother pulled off his human clothing and fell onto the bed, soon joined by Father slinking out of the undefinable place Father could disappear to. It was a cat thing. Or possibly a Mister thing. Uncle Mouse then leapt onto the bed, his great shaggy girth causing the springs to screech defiance and eliminate Mother's need for a blanket. Mother let out a sigh as Puff settled down near Elliot, who was invisibly kneading at a spot on the mattress with tiny lights flashing in her belly area and giving away her position. 

Puff crept closer, for once not bickering with Smaug about who got to sleep where, and raised a paw at the fascinating lights. 

“Touch me, and die.” His sister grumped.

Uncle Mouse chuffed into the tangled sheets, and a pair of gangly peachy arms wrapped around Puff's middle and dragged him close. “'eve yur sis 'lone.” Mama Dresden muttered sleepily as he clutched his child to him.

Puff sighed and tucked his head behind a human ear. He inhaled smoke and magic and home.

“Fine. But she's the one being all prissy.” He muttered, knowing that for all his mother's wondrous qualities the speech impediment was insurmountable.

“I'm not prissy.” Elliot sniffed, burped, and then tried to look like she meant for one of the glowing insects to escape her mouth as it weaved dizzily through the air. “I'm a _Lady_.”

“You aren't a lady.” Smaug spoke with unusual authority from his pillow fortress. “You aren't nothing but a sister.”

“ ** _Kits_**.” A single word purred out from Mister and simultaneously frightened the dragon siblings and soothed the human. The overgrown tomcat stared them all down with one green, glowing eye before licking a leg in contentment and curling up over his human's kidney. Sleepy fingers drifted over Mister's furry head and scratched under the purring cat's chin before settling on back on the bed.

 

 


End file.
